This is one of those temptations I’m not built to resist, apparently. When blinkered stupidity bends this far over and paints that bright a red target circle on its ass, I can’t help wanting to kick it. Flame war, ahoy!

Here’s why Lauren’s post bugged the shit out of me. As we’ve discussed here before, nearly every argument that comes out of the feminist camp depends on bad-faith assumptions about their opponents’ motives.

Blogging cliche, I know, but is it really a “discussion” if there’s basically one viewpoint repeated ad nauseum to an approving choir?

Jill, for example, never tires of reminding us that what the pro-life movement is really all “about” is controlling women. Concerns about dead babies? Just a big smokescreen for misogyny and uterus-harvesting. Literally every argument Marcotte makes employs this M.O.

Some feminists maybe, but this has nothing to do with my post. It’s a way to say, “Look how they group-think. Look how they’re all alike.” Which is pretty laughable, because anyone who reads the three of us a) knows we are not alike, and b) for a guy who decries “identity politics” and acting under a banner of group identity, he’s the one stuffing us all into one box labeled “feminism.” Note that box has nothing to do with a feminist definition of feminism. It’s the amazing strawfeminist in action, folks.

The more doctrinaire or powerful a conservative is, the more conscious his misogyny is assumed to be.

Number of conservatives appearing in my post: 0, unless you count Larry the Cable Guy, and he only pretends to be a bigot.

For those less doctrinaire and powerful-well, they might not be evil per se, but at the very least they’re acting according to a false consciousness. Me, Jeff, most of the other commenters here, we only think we came to our political beliefs in good faith. If you could dig deep into our unconsciousness, you’d see we’re all just cheerleaders for the patriarchy too.

Well? Has ProW+Allah ever said anything contra patriarchal, even when it’s been begging to be said, even when “the patriarchy” has acted against the very values it claims to promote? Were they present at any post that doesn’t offend their version of identity politics? Negative. Because they either would have had to defend the indefensible, or . . . fart out begrudging agreement with a feminist. In public. And, goodness, we certainly can’t have that.

But again: “Conservatives,” Jeff, Allah, and the commenters at Protein Wisdom, have nothing to do with my post.

Thus goes the argument, and that brings us back to Lauren’s post. She and Jill and fucking Marcotte especially

Check out the ever-present hard-on for Amanda. I’d riff more on this one but I don’t want to gross her out.

I can see bringing Jill into it since we share a blog, but Amanda? Get over it, man.

are willing to impute all manner of ulterior motives to folks like me and Jeff-even, as I just explained, if we’re not conscious of those motives.

Right, that’s why Jill and I have all but rolled out the red carpet for them, allowed them to stay on and hijack thread after thread despite repeated, one-sided attacks on our characters with but a few reprisals. And that’s why Jill and I are obsessively refreshing the Protein Wisdom page to find something, anything, to pick on in order to get fresh blog material for Feministe.

So here comes this Muslim woman mouthing platitudes about how her little quasi-chastity-belt hijab “empowers” her, and what does Lauren do? Accepts it entirely at face value. Eats it up with a fucking spoon. Never mind the colossal cultural pressures this woman must feel, and must have felt all her life, to show the “appropriate” degree of modesty in public. No unconscious influences there at all.

Eating it up with a spoon would be: “And after that I realized Muizza was entirely right about everything, and furthermore I’m converting to Islam immediately and will be wearing the hijab myself from now on.”

I’d like him to demonstrate where I ate this up with a spoon or thought about it uncritically. Go on, Mr. Ex-Lawyer-Ex-Blogger-Man. Give me your best evidence.

Lauren’s post made me wonder, what exactly would a feminist taxonomy of good faith look like? I think something like this:

1. Women of color. Presumptively always act in good faith.
2. White women. Presumptively always act in good faith except in matters of race, since they are, after all, white people, and therefore are irredeemably racist. At least on an unconscious level.
3. Men of color. Presumptively always act in good faith except in matters of gender, since they are, after all, men, and therefore harbor some secret desire to control uteruses or fucking whatever.
4. White men. Presumptively never act in good faith. Presumption cannot be rebutted, except insofar as to show false consciousness rather than malicious intent.

Cue Dinesh D’Souza.

Taxonomy of Allah’s argument (white anti-terrorist dude calling himself Allah shouldn’t need to be pointed out, but I will — it’s as choice as David Duke calling himself Yahweh):
1) Lump all “feminists” together.
2) Ascribe a position to your feminist debate opponent that they haven’t maintained.
3) Accuse them of inconsistency when they don’t follow it.
4) Continue to ignore their statements to the contrary, return to penis-hatin’-ugly-horse saw.
5) Return to (1); repeat.

Which brings me to MY question: Did you read the post at all, hon?

And my other question: How do you complain about AmLaurJill, the vaginal collective’s, ostensible habit of unfairly ascribing motive (pardon me, I mean intent) to you and your conservative brethren, our ideological opponents . . . by ascribing intent to said vagcoll, without exploding your head?

And my other, other question: If the ha-ha! gotcha! question of the ProW Crew is, would a feminist defend a Christian woman choosing to garb herself modestly, well, let’s look at this from the other side: Would Jeff and Allah be down with modesty-wear if the Christian woman were explicitly arguing her decision to do so from a feminist standpoint? Or would we just see a run of posts at ProW, Allah’s mouthpiece, mangling that Andrea Dworkin quote about all sex being rape again?

That about right? You can switch numbers 2 and 3 around depending upon whether the issue deals with race or gender.

What fucking bullshit.

Bullshit, indeed.

I’m in way more sympathy with Muizza than I would have been at seventeen — there was only one path to rebellion and nonconformity in my childhood, and it wasn’t a path to modesty. Now that I am, in Derbyshire terms, years past my fuck-by date, I can see the point of it better. As for her continuing to wear hijab, given the environment at the school, I absolutely do see this as a kind of finger-in-the-eye to the racists. Anyway, it all kind of brings up another question I’d like to see Allah answer:

Do you object to the hijab because it’s oppressive, or because she poked you in your eye too?

But don’t mind me. I wouldn’t want to be guilty of making bad-faith assumptions.

Contrary to popular assumption, not all feminists agree on every issue. We’re not jacked-in to an Andrea-Dworkin-Borg-Hive-Mind nor do we meet each fortnight to sample each other’s menstrual blood. If you examine the wide variety of issues feminist b…

I really think Allah should just get his own blog, title it “Amanda, Lauren and Jill are ALWAYS WRONG,” and spend his days quoting our posts and bitching about us. It might be more productive than emailing Jeff with, “look at what those idiots are writing about now!” and then bitching in the comments.

What’s going on here? This post is beneath you; if you wanted an incoherent flame war, why not just respond in the comments of the linked post? There were plenty of questions folks posed and plenty of opportunities to respond with real arguments showing people they were wrong. This seems obnoxiously defensive. Not only are you “proving” his point about bad-faith assumptions (which you gleefully admit), but there’s also the hypocritical element of you starting a juvenile flame war because “he asked for it.” Yay.

I hear what you’re saying, but after months of dealing with this crap, I’m sick of it. I can’t speak for Lauren, but I suspect that she’s having similar feelings.

Here’s the drill: Allah emails Jeff with, “Look at what Jill/Lauren wrote!” Jeff posts it, sometimes with a snarky remark, sometimes not (sometimes he’s perfectly nice about it). At which point the PW commenters go crazy, and it turns into a chorus of, “YEAH! Feminists hate men!” and “Feminists are ugly!” (alternated with, “But Lauren and Jill are HOT, which one do you think is hotter?!”) and on and on. Both Lauren and I have trudged into the comment section over there, and have defended ourselves politely and reasonably, despite all the shit being thrown at us. We’ve answered their questions. We’ve responded to their comments. We’ve played nice for months, and I’m getting pretty tired of it.

I realize that it’s the rules of the game that when you post something, you can expect others to link to you. You can expect to be criticized. That’s fine, and God knows I’ve criticized other blog posts here. But it’s the repetitiveness, and the insistence on using the same model over and over again, that’s exhausting.

Yes, Lauren and I have criticized people like Derbyshire and Ben Shapiro, who are published on conservative websites and whose views are held up as examples of mainstream conservative thought. I’m sure there have been times when we’ve even gone after individual bloggers. But I don’t think you can say that there’s one blog that we constrantly troll, looking for something — anything — that offends us, and that we then link to that blog with the expectation and understanding that our commenters will go nuts about how, based on the views of this individual, “all conservatives are…”

And as a side note, our commenters are generally better at addressing the actual issues presented, instead of just saying, “Well, all Republicans…” It’s not until a winger shows up that the thread gets derailed.

If you didn’t want an off-topic, apocalyptic response represented by the shaded portions of your post, you shouldn’t have ever joined a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, become lesbians, and mentor young, independent Muslim high school students.

Would Jeff and Allah be down with modesty-wear if the Christian woman were explicitly arguing her decision to do so from a feminist standpoint?

Can’t speak for Allah. For me, the answer is yes. And you’ll get the same answer about women who choose to strip, pose nude, do porn, or join a harem. One aspect of being an equity feminist (and being libertarian in most respects) myself is that I not only recognize and accept and respect a woman choosing to become a gender feminist, but I likewise accept and respect a woman choosing to become a paid pipe smoker. I may disagree with both of those decisions — but I love the freedom that allows for them.

Or would we just see a run of posts at ProW, Allah’s mouthpiece, mangling that Andrea Dworkin quote about all sex being rape again?

A. I am nobody’s mouthpiece. B. I don’t think I’ve ever quoted Andrea Dworkin. C. I think my response to your post was perfectly civil and in keeping with what I assumed was part of the debate.

Guess you don’t really want to have the conversation. Which is cool.

Here’s the drill: Allah emails Jeff with, “Look at what Jill/Lauren wrote!” Jeff posts it, sometimes with a snarky remark, sometimes not (sometimes he’s perfectly nice about it). At which point the PW commenters go crazy, and it turns into a chorus of, “YEAH! Feminists hate men!” and “Feminists are ugly!” (alternated with, “But Lauren and Jill are HOT, which one do you think is hotter?!”) and on and on. Both Lauren and I have trudged into the comment section over there, and have defended ourselves politely and reasonably, despite all the shit being thrown at us. We’ve answered their questions. We’ve responded to their comments. We’ve played nice for months, and I’m getting pretty tired of it.

I won’t link to any more of your stuff then, Jill.

Rather than act the grudging martyr, you should have just said something. I don’t refresh your page looking for material; nor do I hijack your threads. As for the repetitiveness of the model — it’s a fairly standard model for left and right blogs when they interact. And as I’ve mentioned before to Lauren, I’ve linked HERE because you both always seemed reasonable and willing to have these discussions — as opposed to, say, Pandagon, or Bitch PhD (where the last such attempt at a discussion ended in a lawsuit).

I had just assumed that when you put up a post you were trying to do more than preach to the choir.

But worry not: I’ll not force you to “trudge” or “defend” or “play nice” with the “wingers” anymore.

I understand the points both of you are making and I agree to a certain extent, but I’ll tell you what I was thinking from the perspective of a reader.

First, Allah could have posted his comment on your original article, but I know if I were him I’d be afraid that it would be moderated/deleted as a troll.

Second, I find it hard to believe you’re incredulous that Protein Wisdom of all blogs would make a post criticizing the idea that it’s empowering for women to wear a Hijab, considering the axis upon which such an idea falls. IIRC it’s not even the first time an exchange between your two blogs over that very subject has occurred (although I may be confused). And “Allah” goes by the handle of Allah for God’s sake! So this in particular I can’t accept as PW specifically trying to troll you, especially when what he actually posted wasn’t a troll at all. Since your problem was with a PW commenter, and since that commenter left the comment in the comments section of a PW post, I come back to my original point.

I thought your two blogs had a semi-friendly “rivalry” going on, and personally I find that interesting and think the interchange is fun/entertaining. But if you want PW to back off from posting responses to your articles, all I can suggest is sending an email saying as much. Going apoplectic seems self-defeating IMO.

I don’t have a problem with you linking to us. I don’t have a problem engaging you and your commenters, if that’s what they’re actually interested in doing. I’m not a big fan of constantly preaching to the choir. But the tone in your comments section is increasingly hostile and reductive, to the point where it doesn’t matter if I try and engage them or not.

I’m perfectly happy to have discussions. The problem is that discussions aren’t really being had.

First, Allah could have posted his comment on your original article, but I know if I were him I’d be afraid that it would be moderated/deleted as a troll.

To the contrary, we allow pretty much everyone to comment and say whatever they want to say. I only delete the shittiest of the bunch and that is incredibly rare. I’m not sure Jill deletes comments on her posts at all.

First, Allah could have posted his comment on your original article, but I know if I were him I’d be afraid that it would be moderated/deleted as a troll.

Ask Allah if Lauren or I have ever deleted his comments.

Second, I find it hard to believe you’re incredulous that Protein Wisdom of all blogs would make a post criticizing the idea that it’s empowering for women to wear a Hijab, considering the axis upon which such an idea falls.

a) No one is incredulous. b) That’s not what Lauren’s post even said.

I thought your two blogs had a semi-friendly “rivalry” going on, and personally I find that interesting and think the interchange is fun/entertaining. But if you want PW to back off from posting responses to your articles, all I can suggest is sending an email saying as much. Going apoplectic seems self-defeating IMO.

I don’t mind Jeff posting responses to our posts. I don’t mind engaing in conversation with PW commenters. But if they have something to say about the post itself, they should come here and say it. And we’d appreciate it if they wouldn’t use our posts as a jumping-off point for arguments about how “all feminists” think a certain way.

As to the friendly rivalry, maybe, I’d say it is as much on the upper levels excepting the endless commentary on Jill’s posts. Once you bring it down to the comments, I’d say our commenters have been much more forgiving and ascribed far better “intent” to the PW visitors here than vice versa.

Why is it relevant what PW’s commenters do, but it was somehow out of bounds for Allah to bring Amanda into his original statement?

This seems to boil down to you being unhappy about what’s going on in someone else’s comments thread – and not wanting them to talk about what happens in your comments threads. Which is your prerogative, but it seems kind of pointless.

In other news:

Though you can keep Robert.

No, Jeff! Don’t leave me here! At night Amanda comes into my room and touches me in the Bad Place, and when I tell Lauren in the morning she just laughs and says I must have invited it.

Why is it relevant what PW’s commenters do, but it was somehow out of bounds for Allah to bring Amanda into his original statement?

Because it always comes down to Amanda, and I’m tired of having to defend her for things she never said, and never said on my blog. I’m sure she’s tired of it as well. Not to mention there is exactly zero mention of her in the post in question.

This seems to boil down to you being unhappy about what’s going on in someone else’s comments thread

Charitability. We’re pretty nice to you, aren’t we, Robert?

- and not wanting them to talk about what happens in your comments threads.

Huh?

Seems more likely to me that if we’re all in this under the guise of dicsussion that an actual discussion might occur. As it stands we’re engaging in a passive aggressive boxing match. Makes more sense to me to make it public.

The obsession that a growing number of white males have with conjuring up a narrative in which they get to play the role of the victim is just amazing. Sheesh.

Yeah, I see this strange sexual fascination with Amanda even in the comments at my place from time to time. She’s clearly tops on the “bitch I’d love to set straight if I could be alone with her” list that some of these boys seem to have in their heads!

Incidentally, here’s a comment left over at Rox Populi that “references” this post:

You know, I started to read that Protein Wisdom post you linked to, but then I stopped and asked myself, “Why?” Anytime somebody with some sembelence of sanity links there, the reason usually ain’t good and Jeff’s arguments and usually ridiculous and not even worth discussing.

Ezra wants people to ignore Town Hall, maybe I’ll start a similar campaign against Protein Wisdom. I’ve wasted too much time, that I’ll never see again, there, so I guess I’m just bitter.

But Jeff is still useless.

Ironically, the commenter wasn’t reading my post — because the link went to a comment. But that didn’t stop him from doing what he’s been trained to do: bash the conservacreep. Not only did he dismiss me as useless and my arguments as generally ridiculous, he did so without even having read the argument.

For the record — and because it’s not linked nor spelled out here, I’ll post my actual response to Lauren’s post yesterday in it’s entirety:

4. Allah is not impressed with this latest from my pal Lauren at Feministe, which post details an experiment in political empowerment that involved a Muslim student removing her hijab, and places it into the context of racism and feminism. Lauren sums up the meaning of the story this way:

I can’t even comprehend the courage it must have taken to take off that scarf, or the courage it will take to put it back on. I am still completely blown away.

Although I am aware that many feminists question hijab and women’s choice to don the Muslim head scarf, and that I myself have been skeptical of the choice to adhere to religious law associated with the Taliban, consider that in America being “hijabed” may be a radical act, an assertion of identity, willful acceptance of life on the margins in a time of a seeming holy war. Consider wearing the hijab as a feminist act, a performative act of aggression against the hypersexualization of young women in America.

[…] I got a valuable lesson from her today. Nothing, nothing, is ever as clear as it might seem. These cultural tangles prevail.

I think Lauren’s point is certainly worth considering—but in return I’d ask that she go beyond the easy lessons she seems to have taken from this story and run the particulars through a different (and competing) identity dynamic. That is, would Lauren—and other feminists (particularly those of the second wave)—consider the wearing of neo-Victorian garb by those active in the Christian modesty movement in the same way she considers the wearing of the hijab? Buttoning the argyle sweater all the way to the throat, for instance, and pulling back the hair into a prim bun—is this, too, “a performative act of aggression against the hypersexualization of young women in America”? Will doctrinaire feminists (like Amanda Marcotte, for instance) grant to young white Christian women the same nobility that Lauren does this young Muslim woman? Would a young white Christian—fighting for her beliefs and reacting to the taunts of young women taught that piercings and tattooes and a willingness to rebel are the sine qua non of identity and empowerment—be granted the same dispensations by the school?

As with Spielberg and Munich [referenced in an earlier part of a 13 item post], Lauren seems to be reveling in the asking of the questions, allowing the open-endedness of the post’s premise to suggest an intellectual coherence that a particular way of pressuring those questions belies. So my question to her is this: are your beliefs truly idealistic? Or are they mere romanticism given the cover of seriousness by an invocation of the weighty topics—racism, sexism, identity, authenticity—they claim to address…?

You may not agree, but I don’t think such a response warranted some of the reactions it’s gotten here, either.

Good faith! Good faith? A bunch of jingo-fucks want to talk about “good faith”. Interesting. Here’s my assessment of Allah’s acting the whiney bitch.

1) Jealousy. The defensiveness over at PW over the “mouthpiece” comment is alarming. It was obvious to me that this was in reference to Allah et al. using Jeff’s comments section as a proxy for a shitty blog.

That’s right. Allah, no matter how much he hates what the grrl bloggers are saying, is just downright jealous of the traffic they get. His parroting of Capt. Ed’s manic gibberish wouldn’t turn heads. Maybe the poor fuck should give it a try, as Jill (who actually does hate my white maleness :-) recommended above.

2) Angst. How would you feel if you were ideologically aligned with war criminals, if your only hope for transforming the United States into an oppressive anti-woman regime was to get behind talking points that refer to the Dem leadership as defeatists and cowards? As if the continued support of a mistake somehow makes it right.

Yes, the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. And mistakes are forgivable up to a point. I defer to this passage of Harold Pinter’s Nobel lecture:

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought.
…

Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don’t exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. ‘We don’t do body counts,’ said the American general Tommy Franks.

Ah. The America Jeff Goldstein loves. The fake concern for the oppression of Muslims on that ProW thread is disgusting, due to their real concern for ensuring the extension of oppression of all Iraqis (Muslim and otherwise) with continued, unnecessary U.S. presence in the country. In a way, the hijab comments there are quaint.

3) Stupidity. Yes, most intelligent individuals (read “liberals”) are aware that people of Jeff’s and Allah’s way of thinking came to their fantasies out of good faith (and likely a belief in a cruel, merciless deity).

Allah’s complaints about the abortion debate are important. It’s boiled down to those who feel it is a reproductive right and those who view it as murder (although shooting down an Iraqi civilian for no reason is somehow accepted). Yes, babies come from pregnancies, but in weighing the importance of choice in this moral clusterfuck, one can only conclude that the individual woman be granted the ability to make a mistake. And that is why pro-criminalizers are henchmen of the patriarchy: Mistakes are “man territory”.

It’s not that you’ve approached your political stances through bad faith, it’s that you’re too idiotic to realize now that you made a wrong turn.

And the “Christian modesty movement” canard is top-notch idiocy. When was the last time a Christian was openly ostracized from a community in this country? There is no proportionality there with the hijab story. Dumbasses.
Then again, I’m just one of those white males who happens to post here at Feministe occasionally. That’s how much Lauren hates my guts.

I don’t mind Jeff posting responses to our posts. I don’t mind engaing in conversation with PW commenters. But if they have something to say about the post itself, they should come here and say it. And we’d appreciate it if they wouldn’t use our posts as a jumping-off point for arguments about how “all feminists” think a certain way.

Indeed, and who could blame you. Perhaps you would afford those who consider themselves to be pro-life the same courtesy and not just make the assumption that they wish to control women. In fact, instead of just summarizing conservatives as you would paint them, you might afford them the opportunity at individuality that you yourself demand.

I tried to point out to Oliver Willis once that the idea of making an enemy of one half (at least) of the country in regards to the issue of race, when making them allies would be far more beneficial to all involved, might actually help the goals of equality to move forward. He demurred and told me to get the hell away from his donuts. Perhaps you fine ladies might give it some thought.

Before you just give me the knee-jerk reaction that you do no such thing, you might want to go back and read some of your posts.

She’s smarter than them and they resent not being able to counter most of her arguments (or understand them)

She doesn’t mind making it clear that she knows she’s smarter than them.

I too enjoy casting broad swaths of people who disagree with my opinions and the tone in which I write them as ignorant fools too blinded by jealousy to recognize my genius. But cheese-based spaceflight is the wave of the future! You’ll see. And then who will be laughing?

(Hoping this is the place for discussion, and not only meta-discussion)

Jeff’s point about neo-Victorian modest long-skirt white Christian women bucking the moderne trends is of interest, but his analogy is flawed: Muizza’s actions were taken in a context of overwhelming ethnic and religious minority status; the long-skirted white Christian women he mentions are in the ethnic and religious majority. Her wearing, and not wearing, the hijab thus has a significance of cultural independence and pride that is lacking for, or at least different from, that of modesty for white Christians in America.

Their mode of dress is, I think, a self-conscious throwback to a Better Time, where Muizza’s mode may well be simply an expression of a continuing and prevalent tradition. A comparable expression to the modest Christians might be wearing in the hijab in, I dunno, Turkey.

Moreover, as has been said over and over, Lauren hardly seems to have taken “easy lessons” from the tale of Muizza.

However, I’d have to say,if Muizza initiated any fighting the next day, that making an exception for her in the “zero-tolerance” policy might not have been the right course for the school.

Whether they “wish to control women” as the primary goal in their hearts of hearts or not, the policies in question remove decision-making from women and give it to someone else.

How is that not control, or more broadly, power over women?

And when told by women that women (or even that woman who is going the telling) sees a loss of control stemming from the policy, they persist in favoring the policy despite the effect of reducing the woman’s control over her life and giving it to others, what then? It’s a wish for a policy that controls women in the way they want, though they themselves don’t want to control women directly with their own actions?

Their mode of dress is, I think, a self-conscious throwback to a Better Time, where Muizza’s mode may well be simply an expression of a continuing and prevalent tradition. A comparable expression to the modest Christians might be wearing in the hijab in, I dunno, Turkey.

Actually, Turkey’s not necessarily the best example of this, because even though most Turks are Muslims, public life in Turkey, particularly in the government, is determinedly secular. In fact, there was a controversy a few years ago when a duly elected member of the Turkish Parliament was refused her seat because she wore a headscarf in violation of government rules.

I recently finished a wonderful novel by Orhan Pamuk, Snow, which explores the headscarf issue in the context of modern Turkey, and how the wearing or removal of the hijab can be a political act. I highly recommend it, and not just for the relevance to the current discussion — it’s a beautifully-written book. As is another of his novels, My Name Is Red.

Wow, talk about getting wound up in a tangent. Lauren noted that an antiterrorist blogger calling himself “Allah” was at least as full of rich, delicious-nutritious irony as an anti-Semite like Duke calling himself “Yahweh.” Funnily enough, I always thought that was the point of using a handle like “Allah” to parody Islamic terrorists; I’d be shocked if Allah himself objected to Lauren’s noting the irony.

I fail to see how anyone gets from this that Lauren is calling Allah as bad as David Duke, or even as bad as anti-Semites in general, or, you know, equating the two of them in any way. By the time we get to statements like “the left is full of anti-Semites,” we’re waaaaayyy off in the woods, far from the original topic.

For once, just let a thread here be about what it’s about, and not what you’d like it to be about, okay?

Or, it would probably be more prudent to say that a personal opinion might consider it to be someone who “follows another obsessively” which according to wiki, is a stalker and includes “repeated following; unwanted contact (by letter-writing, or other means of communication); or observing a person’s actions extremely closely for an extended period of time.”

I know it is hard when someone keeps on pushing the buttons that upset you (Lauren and Jill).. but reacting to the comments is makes them happy. Kicking the bee hive gives them a rush.

I know this will not be a good segway.. but I’m going to try to relate your reaction to angry posts to the reaction to an old boyfriend: After you have had a long relationship and you breakup in a bad way.. it is really easy to HATE your X. But after a few years you realize that the energy you use hating this person is counter productive. The opposite emotion to love is not hate. Hate is closer to like.. or the “I wish I can change this person’s mind..because they seem smart”. The opposite emotion to love is apathy. To not even have the energy to give a rip. They could be dead and you wouldn’t care. That is the opposite feeling.

Everytime you react to these guys you are expelling energy that is better used for something more productive. Honestly, who cares what these guys think.

You bet. That’s why Clinton and Gore both got around 80 percent of the Jewish vote. People talk like those Jews are smart people, but they can’t even figure out who the anti semites are in this country. It’s a mystery I tell ya.

Y’see, there’s a certain stripe of Evangelical Christian that wants to see a strong Israel. They support a stong Israel politically, and want to see financial aid and military interference to make damn sure of it. Are people who oppose them anti-semites? Let’s consider, too, that these same Christians (that is, that certain stripe of Christian described above) also wants to see all American Jews (and _all_ Jews anywhere, for that matter) living in that same strong secure Israel, which is a precondition for the Second Coming by some readings of the Bible. When that time comes, a certain amount of those happy Jews in Israel will be converted to the ways of Christ and take their rightful place on the right hand of God. The rest will be smote in nasty ways. The proportion, I believe, is something like 1/3 converted, 2/3 smoten.

Those people are good tolerant citizens who love and support their Jewish brothers.

And there are those evil pernicious anti-Semites in the left who say that Likud’s immoral use of the IDF to oppress Palestinians is maybe something that they might want to reconsider, which is a position that many many Jews, including Israelis, agree with.

Who’re the anti-Semites?

(Now, Darleen might be referring specifically to certain people who claim to be in the Left who have made specific statements reasonably construed as anti-semitic, and I don’t wish to defend them any more than I’m sure Robert would defend David Duke. Every political philosophy has its nutjobs. There are very few anti-Semitic nutjobs on the Left, unless you include those disgusting Jew-haters that dare question specific policies of the Israeli government.)

Indeed, and who could blame you. Perhaps you would afford those who consider themselves to be pro-life the same courtesy and not just make the assumption that they wish to control women.

You guys are real concerned all right. After all, according to the pro lifers there’s been over 45 million abortions since Roe v. Wade. Holy shit! It’s worse than the Holocaust! So the pro lifers should be on board for federal funding making contraception free for every woman in the country. You’d save millions of lives, right?

Oh wait, the pro lifers also oppose us on contraception at every fucking turn. But we’re supposed to believe this is all about saving lives.

These are some brilliant, on-topic writings that in no way categorize whole groups of people–nor are they obnoxious personal attacks directed towards a specific person. I concede your point that the comments section here is oh so much better than those at PW.

Harry Reid is pro-life. I guess I should consider him in my camp, you know, since we are all the same. I wonder if Nancy Pelosi knows that good ol Harry has designs on her uterus. I bet when she finds out she’s gonna be pissed.

As binky pointed out, whether it is about the control or not, it is ultimately about the control. I am glad you both could point out to me how wrong I am. I will consider my individuality null and void from here on out.

If I had a vagina, do you suppose I could have it back? What about if I could get someone with a vagina to vouch for me?

I got a particular kick out of Ryan’s comment. For the record, when Allah quick blogging shortly after the ’04 elections, he was getting 30K hits a day.

The jealousy he must be feeling is overwhelming!

Then there’s JDC, who thinks that his comment — I am Allah’s pander — will endear him to the screeching marauders who’ve decided to use this thread to vent their spleens on “wingers” as a group (again, special praise goes to Ryan, who I suspect is really hoping to make a serious set of point, but who reads like an over the top parody). Not only is JDC wrong, however — but the glorious part is, he doesn’t even see the irony of leveling the accusation from the perceived ideological safety of this very thread.

Finally, there’s Heretik, whose mannered insults barely ever reach intelligibility — though I’ve no doubt s/h counts himself as the most clever among the species. How fortunate that all one needs to do to respond is fire back in kind:

For centuries, a clear sign of the anti-Semitic impulse at work has been the use of the double standard: social behavior that in others passes without comment or with the mildest questioning becomes, when exhibited by Jews, a pretext for wholesale group denunciation. Such double standards are applied just as recklessly today to the Jewish state. It is democratic Israel, not any of the dozens of tyrannies represented in the United Nations General Assembly, that that body singles out for condemnation in over two dozen resolutions each year; it is against Israel–not Cuba, North Korea, China, or Iran–that the U.N. Human Rights Commission, chaired recently by a lily-pure Libya, directs nearly a third of its official ire; it is Israel whose alleged misbehavior provoked the only joint session ever held by the signatories to the Geneva Convention; it is Israel, alone among nations, that has lately been targeted by Western campaigns of divestment; it is Israel’s Magen David Adom, alone among ambulance services in the world, that is denied membership in the International Red Cross; it is Israeli scholars, alone among academics in the world, who are denied grants and prevented from publishing articles in prestigious journals. The list goes on and on.

The idea that Israel has become the world’s Jew and that anti-Zionism is a substitute for anti-Semitism is certainly not new. Years ago, Norman Podhoretz observed that the Jewish state “has become the touchstone of attitudes toward the Jewish people, and anti-Zionism has become the most relevant form of anti-Semitism.” *

The “hey, I’m only criticizing Israel’s policies! Some of my best friends are Jews!” schtick is figleafing at it most hypocritic.

Oh wait, the pro lifers also oppose us on contraception at every fucking turn. Not true. Just the ones you’re listening to, not those of us who are in the mainstream. Most of us would much rather prevent abortions from ever being considered a necessity by anyone.

Sorry, I just had to get that point in there. Not trying to hijack the thread.

Harry Reid is pro-life. I guess I should consider him in my camp, you know, since we are all the same.

The pro lifers with influence largely are the same. Yes, there are individual exceptions. But is there a single influential pro life organization pushing contraception? Pushing to lift the Global Gag rule, as Harry Reid advocates? Making statements that doctors and pharmacists should have to fill birth control prescriptions regardless of their personal views?

Why do all these organizations push abstinence only when the data shows it’s completely ineffective? Why is abstinece education more imortant than the spread of HIV? If women are ending unwanted pregancies with abortions, why do a pharmacist’s personal views take precedence over preventing the actual unwanted pregnancies? Why is the risk of encouraging pre-marital sex more important than giving a girl a vaccine against cervical cancer?

If this is all about saving lives damnit, then WHY does the need to save lives NEVER override the need to force consequences on those who have sex?

Nothing to do with the fact that Israel is the only Western democracy in the region and is a legitmate, soveriegn state, and just a hell of a lot moral than the fascists that are trying to destroy her or who question her legitimacy?

Oh wait, the pro lifers also oppose us on contraception at every fucking turn. Not true. Just the ones you’re listening to, not those of us who are in the mainstream. Most of us would much rather prevent abortions from ever being considered a necessity by anyone.

I don’t doubt that there’s people who although they might not be for abortion, aren’t necessarily against contraception. But most? And for the sake of argument, let’s say that most pro lifers really are pro contraception. Then where are they? Where’s the influence? Is it really credible that the majority of pro lifers are pushing for more contraception, but that in spite of this the administration just goes and shuttles tens of millions of dollars into faith based groups to push abstinence only?

is a legitmate, soveriegn state, and just a hell of a lot moral than the fascists that are trying to destroy her or who question her legitimacy?

Let’s not kid ourselves. “Legitimate” states exist because of their willingness to kill people who would think otherwise. The U.S. doesn’t stretch from sea to shining sea because of our charm. We were willing to slaughter a lot of people to make it happen.

Likewise, Israel exists because a lot of Jews emigrated there in the first half of the 20th century, and they’re more than willing to use the money and military hardware supplied by the U.S. to maintain their sovereignty.

The U.S. has had less of a problem with our native population because our diseases largely wiped them out.

Somehow I get the feeling if I told you that modern Israel is, historically, the 3rd nation of Israel and that JEWS are indigenous to the region, you’d brush if off as Zionist fable.

And Vikings were here in the Eleventh Century.

The birth of nations is usually a rather bloody affair, and Israel is no exception. There’s two side to every story. This time the Jews came out on top. A lot of nasty things have been done by both sides.

I personally can’t see what the excitement’s about. Couldn’t we have given the Jews New Mexico or something? It’s arid, rocky, and doesn’t have any oil either.

Darleen, it doesn’t matter who’s indigenous to where in a historical sense, what matters is who pushes who out of their homes and denies them civil rights in what was once their country.

My point isn’t that the only reason a non-Jew could support is to support prophecy, but that many of the Christians who support Likud’s corruption of Zionism believe in a form of Biblical prophecy that looks pretty anti-Semitic to me. Other Christians support Israel as an pro-American foothold in the Middle East, and yet other for the moderate “small-z” zionist reason — a homeland for Jewish people. I support Israel for that reason. I do not, however, _unconditionally_ support the governing party and the IDF’s brass. I’ve known several religious (though moderate) Jews who’ve said in no uncertain terms that Israeli exclusion and isolation is contrary to Jewish values. Are they anti-Semites?

My point is that support of Israel and la legitimate love and respect of Jewish people are not directly correlated. People can support Israel and be anti-Semites, just as others can question specific actions and policies of the Israeli government and the IDF without being anti-Semites. And people can question the government without questioning the legitimacy of the state. Are people who think Bush should be impeached anti-American?

Darleen, you haven’t made a convincing case for anti-Semitism on the left. You’ve reference Cindy Sheehan’s supposed anti-Semitism, which could be legitimate, but I haven’t read the evidence,s o I can’t comment on it one way or the other. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, and that Cindy Sheehan is a raving anti-Semite, believes the Blood Libel, carries a copy of the Protocols of the Elders, and gives money to the Shah of Iran. Even if all that were true, she is not a representative of the left. Even if all that were true, she would fall clearly under the category of “unrepresentative nutjobs” that I referred to earlier.

You’ve presented material that, if we take it at face value, might make a good case for anti-Israeli bias in international politics. I don’t know enough about the cases to comment on that. If I take it at face value, though, it in no way constitutes evidence that _the left_ is anti-Semitic, but that there is an anti-Israel bias in international politics. Israel is not Judaism. To question the Israeli government’s actions and policies is not (necessarily, though sometimes it is) to question the legitimacy of the state. And event o question the legitimacy of the state of Israel is not (necessarily) to hate Jews. You’re indulging in an unfair amount of conflation.

If Israel gave Palestinians (indeed, all people living within Israel’s border’s) equal rights under the law, a lot of so-called anti-Semitism would disappear almost overnight.

Now, that said, there is a certain amount of real actual anti-Semitism in people who claim to be part of the Left. This is not evidence that the Left is anti-Semitic, but rather evidence that the Right doesn’t have a monopoly on anti-Semitism.

gswift: The main reason Israel’s where it is now is that Britain wanted the fuck out of Palestine, and Zionist Jews just happened to want the territory because of their historical claim. There was talk of giving them a country in Africa, but damned if I can remember which one.

Of course, the reason this was a problem in the first place was that, even though Allied nations were happy to fight a war supposedly to save the Jewish people, none of them wanted to actually let Jews into their country. Israel was created so Western anti-Semites had a country to tell Jews to go back to.

76- Opposing free condoms for teenagers isn’t the same as opposing contraception. Not even most Catholics oppose contraception, even though that’s a teaching of the church. The vast majority of Protestant Christian churches aren’t anti-contraception. Before Griswold v. Connecticut, it might not have gone without saying that most people didn’t oppose contraception. But fifty years later, it’s sort of like assuming that anybody is in favor anti-miscegenation laws. Sure, there are some, but very few.

Except the PATRIARCHY. Anything you assume about those sneaky bastards is probably too lenient.

Sounds like Allah is projecting to me. It’s the anti-feminists making gross generalizations and pulling out stereotypes about feminists. Plus, they do this in our comments section to derail our discussions. Just ignore them, and don’t let the feminist discussions get off track. That’s what they want – to derail legitimate conversation.

Sounds like Allah is projecting to me. It’s the anti-feminists making gross generalizations and pulling out stereotypes about feminists. Plus, they do this in our comments section to derail our discussions. Just ignore them, and don’t let the feminist discussions get off track. That’s what they want – to derail legitimate conversation.

Can’t you see any irony whatsoever in your saying this? Whatever happened to addressing people individually and talking about the specific points they raise?

How is it anti-feminist to be against wearing a hijab, while arguing strongly for the freedom to make that choice? How is it “derailing” feminist discussion to question why the impulse to wear such an obvious symbol of oppression is taken uncritically?

A comparable expression to the modest Christians might be wearing in the hijab in, I dunno, Turkey.

zuzu:

Actually, Turkey’s not necessarily the best example of this, because even though most Turks are Muslims, public life in Turkey, particularly in the government, is determinedly secular. In fact, there was a controversy a few years ago when a duly elected member of the Turkish Parliament was refused her seat because she wore a headscarf in violation of government rules.

Eh? My analogy was

modest Christians:secular USA :: hijab Muslims:secular Turkey

So you’re saying Turkey is determinedly secular, but the US is only secular? Well, OK, it’s not a perfect analogy. But anyway, Jeff G.’s analogy was bogus.

I believe Darleen is referring to Not In Our Name, an anti-war coalition whose founding members include such reknowned anti-semites as William Blum, Riva Enteen, Nina Felshin, Mary Lou Greenberg, Barbara Lubin, Lori Silverman, and Bob Stein.

A Google search of “ANSWER anti-war protests”, first link, brings up their LA chapter’s home page, with a list of the various protests they’re hosting. Other ANSWER sites have similar listings.

For “NION anti-war protests”, first link brings up an anti-war news site whose very first sentence is “Westlake Center was unusually full last night as more than 1,000 protesters showed up to protest war and for a “call for actions of protest and resistance” sponsored by a group called Not in Our Name.” (My emphasis.) And then there are lots of other similar links.

Here’s an example of ANSWER refusing to let an anti-Zionist, ultra-left Jew speak at one of their rallies. Why? Because he criticized ANSWER’s anti-Israel stance. I get that you don’t respect Front Page as a source; but the WaPo article is gone to archive heaven, you’ll have to deal with Front Page..

If you want to see an example of the anti-Semites on the left (or anywhere else), read my blog. I have hundreds of examples collected over the years, including this lovely anti-Semitic photograph from an anti-war protest a couple of years ago. And Charles Johnson, whose name is anathema on the left, is still an excellent source for exactly that kind of proof of anti-Semitism.

Cindy Sheehan’s anti-Semitism is documented in a letter she sent to ABC Nightline, in which she used the anti-Semitic canard that her son died “for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel.” She further elucidated: “My son joined the army to protect America, not Israel.” She denies having said that. Nightline says they have a copy of it.

Irrespective of whether you validate her as a full-fledged member of the left, nevertheless, she is one of the most visible faces of the anti-war movement, and one of the first things she did was slam Israel and Jews. And then make an about-face when that leaped up and bit her in the ass.

I have become very, very disaffected with the left’s constant stream of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish statements and personalities. I find it difficult to understand how a “peace” march in Washington can devolved into chants for Israel’s destruction, for instance, but I’ve seen many such things on C-SPAN, and in the pages of the Times, and in AP and Reuters.

And when I see a comment like this:

Of course, the reason this was a problem in the first place was that, even though Allied nations were happy to fight a war supposedly to save the Jewish people, none of them wanted to actually let Jews into their country. Israel was created so Western anti-Semites had a country to tell Jews to go back to.

which is full of ignorance, it doesn’t make me think any better of that side of the aisle–a side I have been fleeing for the past five years in part because of its increasing anti-Semitism.

Knifeghost, the country you couldn’t remember was Uganda, and the reason it was not considered too much is because Jews originated in Israel, not Uganda. It isn’t a case of being indigenous; there’s been a continuous Jewish presence in Israel for 3,500 years. The palestinians like to pretend Jews never existed before 1948 in the world’s only Jewish state, and people on the left tend to use the word “indigenous” when describing what are often Jordanians and Egyptians who migrated to Palestine after Jewish immigration energized the economy. At the same time, they do not use the word “indigenous” to describe Jewish Israelis who have been there for generation upon generation.

And here’s a news flash: WWII was not fought to save the Jews. That was an aftereffect. The Allies were not “happy” to save the Jews. In fact, the Allied forces didn’t bomb so much as a single railroad track leading to a concentration camp. They had the maps. They knew what was going on. They did nothing.

WWII was fought to defeat Hitler. Period. The world as a whole closed its borders to Jews fleeing the persecution in Germany, and that includes Britain closing the borders of Palestine, even as she let Arabs from the surrounding nations immigrate freely. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives could have been saved if Britain had allowed the Jews to settle there in the 1930s. But I digress.

No, criticism of Israeli isn’t necessarily anti-Semitic. But it’s funny how often anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel go hand-in-hand. David Duke wants to be best buddies with Cindy Sheehan these days. Funny, that.

The far right meets the far left. It’s a dance that’s happening more and more these days. “Neocon” has become another codeword for Jew. Democratic members of Congress make anti-Jewish remarks and are not only unpunished, but re-elected.

Is it any wonder I’ve moved further to the center? At least the right chastized Pat Buchanan; Congress did nothing when Jim Moran came out and blamed the Jews for the war in Iraq. This is not a fringe lunatic. This is a Congressional representative from northern Virginia.

I have a fair-sized Christian following on my blog, which deals mostly with the issues of Israel, anti-Semitism, and Jews. My Christian readers aren’t waiting for the Rapture. They just believe that Israel, as the only truly democratic state in the Middle East, should be supported.

In any event, that one is quite clearly a “No War For Israel” anti-Zionist sign. As we’ve already gone over, Israel =/= the Jews. I’m still looking for “all those explicit Judenhass signs” Darleen was frothing about.

Moreover, there’s no indication that the one sign was endorsed by the rally’s organizers or by anyone other than the signmaker.

That’s an ugly sign, but I attended several anti-war rallies, and I never saw anything like that. And I doubt that, if I ran a google search and found some hateful signs at rallies for your pet right-wing causes, you would be willing to concede that your worldview was hopelessly bound up with racism, sexism, anti-semitism, and other ugly ideologies that one encounters regularly in the right wing world.

Look, I’m not denying that there’s anti-semitism in the left or in the anti-war movement. But I don’t think there’s any more anti-semitism among lefties than among righties. In fact, I suspect, based on personal experience, that lefties are significantly less likely to be anti-semitic. And I wonder if you and Darleen have ever called anyone on your side of the political fence on their overt or coded anti-semitism.

Moreover, there’s no indication that the one sign was endorsed by the rally’s organizers or by anyone other than the signmaker.

I think that’s the most important point. I’ve been saying all along (and Sally just reiterated it very clearly) that a few possibly anti-Semitic nutjobs on the Left (and there’s really no such thing as “the Left” and “the Right” in any coordinated sense. Free-market Libertarians can’t be held responsible for Fred Phelps.) do not constitute proof that the Left is anti-Semitic. There is no proof to that effect, unless you believe that anything short of an unquestioned pro-Israel position is anti-Semitic.

I should make it clear that, just as criticism of specific policies of the Israeli government doesn’t constitute anti-Semitism, support for Palestinian rights and freedoms does not constitute support for terrorism or suicide bombing.

You asked Darleen for one. One was provided. Now you’re moving the goalpost.

Moreover, there’s no indication that the one sign was endorsed by the rally’s organizers or by anyone other than the signmaker.

Yeah, that’s true…except for the part where you see the guy carrying that sign walking with the ANSWER contingent.

In any event, that one is quite clearly a “No War For Israel” anti-Zionist sign. As we’ve already gone over, Israel =/= the Jews. I’m still looking for “all those explicit Judenhass signs” Darleen was frothing about.

Right. Because a sign showing a Jewish devil, festooned with Stars of David, swastikas, and dollar signs, with two befanged, pointy-eared minion demons lurking behind him wearing Star of David yarmulkes, surrounded by “Counterfeit Jews” and “Zionist Pigs”…that has NOTHING to do with anti-Semitism. That’s just not liking Israeli policies.

Sally:I doubt that, if I ran a google search and found some hateful signs at rallies for your pet right-wing causes, you would be willing to concede that your worldview was hopelessly bound up with racism, sexism, anti-semitism, and other ugly ideologies that one encounters regularly in the right wing world.

So the ugly things ARE part of the right-wing world, and you can find evidence of this, but we would deny it.

And this analogy to left-wing anti-semitism helps your case how exactly?

Ah, Goldstein provides another one for my ongoing series “Great Moments in the Passive Voice”:

“…or Bitch PhD (where the last such attempt at a discussion ended in a lawsuit).”

Oddly, the identity of the party who actually filed the lawsuit is left uncited, which I suppose is necessary if you’re engaged in an truly Orwellian attempt to desrcibe him as some sort of crusader for free speech…and, of course, the claim that this was the last example of substantive disagreement in the comments there is just an outright lie.

I’ll repeat my question. Have you ever challenged anti-semitism on the right, Robert and Darleen? I don’t know about Darleen, but Robert seems to spend a lot of time on the internet and should be able to provide some relevent links to places where he has shown the slightest concern about anti-semitism when it wasn’t a convenient way to smear the left.

should be able to provide some relevent links to places where he has shown the slightest concern about anti-semitism when it wasn’t a convenient way to smear the left.

Anti-semitism on the right gets bitchslapped fairly regularly, Sally. Here and here, to name just a couple examples that leap to mind. Sorry they’re both about Buchanan, but he’s a high-profile target and definitely qualifies in the “overt” category.

By and large, intellectual right wingers don’t have to worry too much about anti-Semitism, because we explicitly purged the anti-Semites from the movement, back in the 50s and 60s. We don’t have guys holding Jews=devils signs at our rallies, because none of us believe that.

So which right-wing anti-Semitism do you want me to denounce? The phantoms in your head, you’ll have to explicitly describe for me; I can’t see in there. In the real world, there just aren’t many examples to work with. Maybe you could find some. All I can think of is David Duke, and some of the white nationalists are also right-wing. They’re also totally marginalized, and – here comes the tricky part, you guys might want to write this down – we don’t march with them.

Troglodytes like Duke are scum. I wish they would die, or at least become Democrats. Good enough for you?

“the claim that this was the last example of substantive disagreement in the comments there is just an outright lie.”

Sure, Scott, but with one correction: The claim that that little affair was an example of substantive disagreement, full stop, is an outright lie.

But I’m not surprised, given that JG was quite happy to indict my character on his own blog, even when claiming that he wasn’t doing so, nor did he see fit at any point to criticize his ally for threatening to sue me even after he himself, JG, said that he didn’t think I had done anything wrong. Apparently he is projecting when he implies that feminists are more interested in criticizing their political opponents and defending their fellow travellers than in actual substance. Certainly he is being extremely hypocritical when he accuses me of failing to value “substantive debate” over personal alliances.

Hey, if I ran around screaming that dissenting on BPHD would get you lied about and get yer superiors in the real world contacted to read such slander, I’d expect to get slapped down and made to hear the other side again. I avoid such things unprovoked myself for such a reason.

Well, one example is the rhetoric around George Soros, some of which is coded and some of which isn’t. This infamous paragraph appeared on the website GOPUSA.com:

The fiction which is interdependency has a prolocutor in the congregation of Moloch. His name is George Soros. No other single person represents the symbol and the substance of Globalism more than this Hungarian-born descendant of Shylock. He is the embodiment of the Merchant from Venice…. If Soros is correct when he says a ‘supremacist ideology’ guides the White House, what would you call the practices of the archfiend of Free Enterprise? The Soros deception would make Shylock proud….

Here’s something that Tony Blankely said on Sean Hannity’s show. (The date is June 3, 2004.):

This is a man who, when he was plundering the world’s currencies, in England in ’92, he caused the Southeast Asian financial crisis in ’97….He said that he has no moral responsibility for the consequences of his financial actions. He is a self-admitted atheist, he was a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust.

(My grandparents were also Jews who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust. I never realized that was something of which they should have been ashamed.)

O’Reilly has explicitly said that Soros is the “moneyman behind” the war on Christmas. John Gibson, also on Fox, at least admits that us Jews aren’t the only ones behind the anti-Christmas conspiracy:

The wagers of this war on Christmas are a cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers, cultural relativists, and liberal, guilt-wracked Christians — not just Jewish people.

It’s patently untrue that the American right has purged anti-semites, although they’re certainly a bit less overt about it than they used to be. If you really cared about anti-semitism, you’d be concerned. That you are not concerned is evidence to me that you don’t really care about anti-semitism and only bring it up when it’s a convenient way to attack people whom you don’t like. And as a Jew, I find that pretty offensive.

You mean the infamous paragraph that GOPUSA apologized for, and then fired the columnist for writing?

Nice de-contextualization of the Blankely quote; I especially like how you provide no transcript link, so that the casual reader can’t check your statement. In the transcript, it is painfully obvious that Blankely was saying that Soros is a tricky and clever person. He is offering the fact that he managed to survive the Holocaust – quite a feat – as evidence that the man is formidably clever, not as a slur. What’s anti-Semitic about that?

Perhaps we’re working from different definitions of anti-Semitism. Let me give you my examples-based definition and you can clarify where you think I’m mistaken.

NOT ANTI-SEMITIC:

“Joe Smith is Jewish.”
“Joe Smith is the financier who is backing such-and-such political cause.”
“Joe Smith is one smart son of of a bitch. I don’t like him very much and I don’t trust him.”

ANTI-SEMITIC:

“The Jewish Zionist pig John Smith is a vampire squeezing the blood of the workers!”

So you’ve presented one genuinely anti-Semitic statement – which was promptly denounced, and its author fired – and three instances of people talking about someone who was a Jew but not saying anything particularly anti-Jewish.

I’ve been in the left for three and a half decades. And yes, there are anti-semites on the left. I have had the displeasure of meeting a number of them over the years, and they fall into one of two categories:
1) those who mistake sympathy for displaced and/or oppressed Arab people with antipathy for Jews.
2) those who are insane.
Some of them belong to both categories.

But as anyone with any actual experience working with the left – as opposed to paranoid fantasists jerking off over the specter of Commies under the bed – will tell you, such people are in the extreme minority in the left, and here’s the reason:

Leftist Jews and their friends (like me) have kicked their fucking asses out of town. Some of them retreat to useless little Marxist splinter groups. On occasion, such groups get prominent mention on leaflets advertising demonstrations. The rest of the time, when we progressives and leftists are trying to get work done, fighting negative declaraions on environmental impact statments and opening women’s shelters and feeding people with HIV, they are nowhere to be found. Which is fine, because all they’re good for is providing wank fodder to the above mentioned, carpal-tunnel-syndrome-afflicted paranoid fantasists.

Robert calls the demand for more than one photo “moving the goalposts.” He ought to know: he claims the right is blame-free because the “intellectual right wingers” kicked the anti-semites out in the 1950s and 1960s. (Presumably this was because it was getting too crowded in the broom closet where they held their meetings.) In other words, A finer example of shifting the goalposts I have rarely seen. The left is worthy of condemnation if a single anti-Semitic sign shows up at a demonstration somewhere, while the right gets a pass because there are no anti-Semites on the board of the PNAC.

I appreciate the fact that one needs to get out the electron microscope to analyze the nuanced reasoning of folks carrying signs depicting fanged Israelis, and needs to reference 15 peer-reviewed articles to *dare* suggest that there’s a fine line between rabid anti-Israelism and anti-semitism that many folks boldly march across because they hold the “right” ideological perspective–while at the same time it’s plainly obvious that someone on the “wrong” side of that equation need only mention the word “Jew” to reveal their craven racist desires. This standard of evaluation has nothing at all to do with the reason this flame thread started in the first place.

You asked Darleen for one. One was provided. Now you’re moving the goalpost.

Sorry, who’s moving the goalpost? Darleen made claims of explicit Judenhass signs, plural. I’ve seen one lone sign, and I disagree with your interpretation of it as explicitly anti-Semitic (I do agree that it is ugly). The devil is clearly labeled “Capitalist Whiteman” and not even the photographer, who was at the rally, can place this sign as within the ANSWER contingent. So, at most we have one lone nutbar holding an anti-capitalist, anti-Zionist sign.

paranoid fantasists jerking off over the specter of Commies under the bed

Wait, am I supposed to be wanking under the bed, or is it the Commies who are supposed to be under there? I need to know – got to get the fantasy situation just right, or it doesn’t work. (“No, I said a red leather bustier, not a busted leathery red…just forget it, CSI is on.”)

Robert calls the demand for more than one photo “moving the goalposts.”

Chris, you been reading the thread?

“There are anti-Semitic signs at these left-wing ANSWER protests.”

“Oh yeah? Well, prove that ANSWER holds protests!”

“Here’s a link to their site, listing their protest schedule.”

“Oh yeah? Well, prove that they have this kind of sign at those protests!”

“Here’s a photo of such a sign.”

“Oh yeah? Well, prove that this sign was associated with ANSWER!”

“Here’s a photo of the guy with this sign, marching next to the ANSWER banner.”

“Oh yeah? Well…find me another one!”

I call that moving the goalpost. You can call it whatever you like; “desperate scrabbling spinning” comes to mind.

Leftist Jews and their friends (like me) have kicked their fucking asses out of town. Some of them retreat to useless little Marxist splinter groups.

I thought that was pretty much the definition of the left. (Ba dum bump.)

I have no doubt that you guys do yeoman work in keeping bigots out of your organizations, Chris. Other people with whom you keep faith do not.

I have had the displeasure of meeting a number of them over the years, and they fall into one of two categories:

Which happens, and what do you do? Quibble about the sign. “Oh, those demon fangs aren’t so long as to be really anti-Semitic. They’re more…NON-Semitic. Yeah. That’s it.”

As for the Republicans being so squeaky-clean on anti-Semitism, how come so many Republican Congresscritters opposed measures…

Because they think the people who introduced that measure were acting in bad faith, to turn a troubled situation into a political football that could be used to dislodge a vulnerable Republican House seat, and they decline to turn one of the engines of our national defense into a place for identity-politicking nimrods to build tiny “diversity” empires?

Either that, or because the Kleagle told them “smite the Judens, my white brothers!”

I’m a little bit confused about how the context changes the Blankley comment. Is Soros’s atheism also part of his sneaky cleverness? Why bring his atheism up immediately before bringing up his Jewishnessm if this is really just about his being clever? How is not feeling responsible for the moral effects of your financial actions related to the supposedly neutral (or maybe even good!) sneaky cleverness that would allow an atheist Jew to survive the Holocaust? And seeing as Soros was a child during the Holocaust and probably managed to avoid deporation because of his parents’ sneakiness rather than his own, how is his survival even a relevent fact?

I’m not surprised that the guy who wrote the Shylock piece was fired: there was a massive internet shit storm about it, and it was embarassing for the right. It seems telling to me that someone who would write that was hired to be a columnist on the GOPUSA website in the first place. It seems at least as telling as the fact that one person in one anti-war protest carried an anti-semitic poster. But then, unlike you, I actually care about anti-semitism.

Sally, Blankely was explaining why he didn’t trust Soros. His atheism is apparently a major part of it. Your questions are all very good questions to examine why Blankely is misinformed or mistaken in his perceptions; they have no bearing on whether he’s an anti-Semite.

There’s been a major shit storm in the last two-three years about left-wing anti-Semitism, too. The difference is that the right wing fires and condemns people like that. The left wing finds excuses for why it’s not really as bad as it looks, and demands proof that water flows downhill.

The difference is that the right wing fires and condemns people like that

Robert brings the funny!

The right-wing is perfectly happy with anti-Semitism as long as it’s not openly anti-Zionist and is ‘country club’ anti-Semitism. That is, as long as you support Israel and believe that we should indulgently tolerate our “elder brethren” (subject, of course, to their shutting the fuck up about official state endorsement of Christianity), you’re all right.

The left wing is more open about its anti-Semitism, but prefers to justify it as anti-Zionism and opposition to patriarchal religions.

No, she was asked to show one photo to substantiate her claim that there were multiple signs of explicit “Judenhass” at antiwar rallies. I got one photo of one sign of uncertain provenance and at least arguable content (look again; the fanged devil is a capitalist, not a Jew).

And this was linked by you, not from Darleen, who was the one who made the claims in the first place. I didn’t ask you. You’re not the one burbling talking points straight from Wingnut Central.

as theyre preserving the ancient Hebrew tradition of the scapegoat.It seems telling to me that someone who would write that was hired to be a columnist on the GOPUSA website in the first place.

OK, so why does said asshat represent all right-of-center thought and become a “scapegoat,” and at the same time the anti-Semites on the left do *not* represent the left? You can reject your asshats and say they’re not “one of us,” but the right can’t? Hmmm.

Read Meryl’s comment again–and her blog, for that matter. She’s hardly the partisan “anti-feminist wingnut” that you may choose to believe she is.

Nice de-contextualization of the Blankely quote; I especially like how you provide no transcript link, so that the casual reader can’t check your statement. In the transcript, it is painfully obvious that Blankely was saying that Soros is a tricky and clever person. He is offering the fact that he managed to survive the Holocaust – quite a feat – as evidence that the man is formidably clever, not as a slur. What’s anti-Semitic about that?

This was already nicely addressed by someone from the right side of the aisle. Eugene Volokh, take us on home.

What does his being a Jew who managed to survive the Holocaust have to do with things?

I think it’s quite a stretch from this to concluding, as Mark Kleiman does, that this “resolv[es] doubts” “about how much of the [anti-Soros] campaign was based on simple anti-Semitism.” I’m not sure this even tells us how much of Blankley’s anti-Soros views are based on simple anti-Semitism, much less the views of the rest of the campaign.

There’s a simple explanation for why Republicans, especially pro-Administration republicans, dislike Soros and are working to undermine them — he seems to dislike them, and is working to defeat them, using some rather intemperate rhetoric. I have no reason to think that their actions are based, in any significant part, on anti-Semitism.

At the same time, when a person just trots out someone’s Jewishness (or whiteness or blackness) in a context where it seems to make very little sense (the first Blankley reference to his Jewishness does make sense, but the second does not), it does at least suggest that the person is more focused than he should be on who’s a Jew and less on the merits on the debate — and it certainly hints at broader hostility to Jews.

Maybe for you, but it’s very much the case with some people (see also: Pat Buchanan–and a hell of a lot of others, for that matter.)

But doesn’t the contention that “neocon” has become a codeword for jew imply that the common, mainstream usage for the term neocon is in the “code for jew” context?

I’m not saying it’s never happened. And there’s not much of anything I’d put past Buchanan, but who are all these people using it in this sense? What mainstream influential groups use it in this fashion?

You don’t think it at least deserves consideration–the assertion that there’s a financially-backed cabal of intellectuals whose loyalties happen to be to Israel, who happen to be hijacking governments, and happen to be conniving liars who push those governments into fighting illegal wars against those governments’ interests and for the interests of Israel–that this may, oh I don’t know, touch upon almost EVERY anti-semitic canard except for hook-noses and poor athletic ability? *

But I’m not surprised, given that JG was quite happy to indict my character on his own blog, even when claiming that he wasn’t doing so, nor did he see fit at any point to criticize his ally for threatening to sue me even after he himself, JG, said that he didn’t think I had done anything wrong. Apparently he is projecting when he implies that feminists are more interested in criticizing their political opponents and defending their fellow travellers than in actual substance. Certainly he is being extremely hypocritical when he accuses me of failing to value “substantive debate” over personal alliances.

I indicted your character? I thought I stuck pretty much to Wally whatever his name was, and publically stated I wouldn’t have brought you into the suit. The only thing I said about you was that you removed Paul’s “offensive” and “bullying” posts for a time. If that isn’t the case, I apologize.

As to not criticizing Paul for threatening suit after I suggested you didn’t do anything wrong…well, I noted that it was his choice, but that I didn’t think your actions merited his filing suit against you. How am I being hypocritical? What substantive debate was I supposed to engage in over Paul’s feeling that you had libeled him beside saying that I disagree?:

I don’t hold Bitch PhD responsible in any way for the comments made by Wally Hettle. I also don’t think Paul should be trying to out her identity. My beef has always been with Hettle’s actions, which its seems to me were an egregious misuse of his position. In the comments on this site and other sites, the argument has been floated that, because Paul Deignan goes to a different school and is studying in a different discipline, Wally’s call to Paul’s advisor wasn’t likely to have much of an effect.

Maybe, maybe not. Clearly, he intended it to—whether he thought it might harm Paul academically, or whether it was just a bullying attempt to chill speech. But the point is, Paul shouldn’t have had his academic career put into any jeopardy simply because he engaged others in an open forum. If, as Dr Hettle argued, Paul was interrupting a private discussion among liberal academics who were hoping to enjoy the same kind of echo chamber atmosphere they operate in within their respective academic departments, then perhaps the solution would be for Bitch PhD to restrict registration for commenting to likeminded liberal commenters.

A litmus test, if you will.

I’m also quite certain I said in numerous comments that I didn’t think Paul should have brought you into the suit — that my complaint was always with Hettle — but I don’t feel like finding them just now.

You know, you really should be more careful about throwing around such accusations, Bitch PhD. The history is not so difficult to dig up. The point of my quip — “where the last such attempt at a discussion ended in a lawsuit” — was to revisit remarks made by Hettle that conservatives even daring to ENGAGE in a thread at your place were told that they were invading a space of discourse to which they weren’t invited.

Lauren and Jill, I commend you for running such a great messageboard on which people can discuss a wide array of topics, from anti-Semitism to lawsuits that are or are not inspired by character attacks.

The main concern is not their Jewishness, it’s that they push bad policy. Unfunded bad policy pushers are of little concern. Well funded bad policy pushers are more likely to do damage.

intellectuals whose loyalties happen to be to Israel

But that’s not the reason people oppose them. Paul Wolfowitz’s loyalty to Israel is not why he’s dangerous. He’s dangerous because he gets in front of Congress that tells them that career army generals are wildly off the mark and that we can occupy and transform Iraq with only 100,000 troops.

who happen to be hijacking governments

Oh please. The opposition to the neocons from both the left and the right don’t think they’ve hijacked the government. They think (rightly) that they’re the primary movers when it comes to formulating foreign policy.

and happen to be conniving liars who push those governments into fighting illegal wars against those governments interests

Cheney (non Jew) IS a conniving liar. They get accused of lying because they lie, not because they are Jewish.

and for the interests of Israel–that this may

Is this being asserted by anyone with any real influence? To my knowledge Jim Moran chairs no committees, and was publicly taken to task by Pelosi for his comments.

The point is that none of you are demonstrating that the fact that many neocons are Jewish is any kind relevant factor for their mainstream critics.

You know, you really should be more careful about throwing around such accusations, Bitch PhD. The history is not so difficult to dig up. The point of my quip — “where the last such attempt at a discussion ended in a lawsuit” — was to revisit remarks made by Hettle that conservatives even daring to ENGAGE in a thread at your place were told that they were invading a space of discourse to which they weren’t invited.

Huh. You know what it sounded like? It sounded like you were dishonestly implying that engaging liberals results in lawsuits. You know, from the liberals? Not that banning some petty jackass from your blog because he’s an obnoxious asshole results in said petty jackass filing a lawsuit.

JG (and apologies to Lauren, but I have been holding my tongue on this a while and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to address it), indictments of me on your blog:

“Bitch PhD [this being a leftwing site, the administrator has removed the exchange in question.” Implication: that I deleted comments because they weren’t in accordance with my political beliefs, rather than because they were insulting.

“Paul’s attempt to debate substantively and civilly was regarded as beyond the pale,” Ditto. I refuse to believe that anyone operating in good faith found his comments either substantive or civil, as they basically amounted to “did you even READ what you wrote?”

“My beef has always been with Hettle’s actions,” Obviously untrue. Your beef in the previous post, as the above comments show, was partly with me and the fact that I exercised my perogative to delete unproductive comments.

“perhaps the solution would be for Bitch PhD to restrict registration for commenting to likeminded liberal commenters.

A litmus test, if you will.” Here, you continue the implication that I eschew substantive discussion, and throw in a little bit of smartassed snark for good measure.

“In her recent post Bitch PhD cherrypicks a single comment in order to suggest that Paul’s comments in the original thread were, pace my suggestion in yesterday’s post, uncivil and unsubstantive.

Here are several that she didn’t bother quoting:” Again, the implication that I am intellectually dishonest. I quoted two comments, first of all, not one. And, were I inclined to bother, I could also point out that the long comments that you quoted in your post (which I didn’t quote in part because they were *on my blog*, and the audience I was addressing was already familiar with them–not because, as you imply, I was trying to hide evidence) were, by your own admission, “provocative” and “snarky.” You said, “Whether or not one believes Paul was behaving “civilly” is, I suppose, a matter of perspective and context.” Yes, it is a matter of perspective and context. Because I delete unproductive bullshit, the bar for civil discourse at my blog is apparently higher than it is at yours. That has nothing to do with right vs. left; it merely has to do with a distinction in the kind of blogs we run. Saying otherwise is the most facile kind of sophism.

Your commenters also took the opportunity to engage in some Bitch-bashing. Going by the standards that you and your friend Mr. D. seem to think should operate, in which a blogger is responsible for everything said in her comment threads–in all three of your posts, you continuously drag me into it, even while saying that you don’t think the problem is with me; and you did so in this comment thread as well, on another topic–by allowing that to happen, you implicitly endorsed it.

More to the point, in all three of your posts, and especially the third, you defend D’s actions. You say that you, personally, wouldn’t have threatened me the way he did; but you don’t condemn him for doing it. The impression is that you don’t find his doing it particularly objectionable, and here in this comment thread you imply that I, not he, initiated a lawsuit. The only interpretation I think is reasonable is that, because you consider him a political ally and me a political opponent, you think it is just fine to imply that I am intellectually dishonest, that I lie, and that I overreact in perceiving “civil discourse” as offensive–but you don’t feel equally compelled to recognize the intellectual dishonesty, untruths, and overreaction on the other side. In fact, you seem interested in covering it up by continuing to point the finger at me, again with things like “you really should be careful where you throw around such accusations.”

I have explained the basis for my “accusations.” And I will thank YOU not to accuse ME, directly or by implication, of intellectual dishonesty, stifling debate, or failing to appreciate substantive discussion in the future. In fact, I would appreciate it if you were never to mention me again.

The amusing thing about the Bitch/Deignan thing is that all his whinging and obsessing over her comment is probably destroying any claim for damages from any initial libel. Talk about your superseding causes.

Those aren’t indictments of your character, BitchPhD — aside from the first one, which is the one I acknowledged.

The others are all indictments of your actions, with the exception of the last, which is a description of your action — and an accurate one at that. You did indeed cherrypick the comments to place Paul in the worst possible light.

Similarly, not every criticism is an indictment of your character. My failing to “condemn” Paul? Not an indictment of your character. Condemning Hettle’s actions? Not an indictment of your character. In fact, I made it clear over and over again that it was Hettle who’d overstepped his bounds. You simply cannot draw parallels between my condemnation of what he did and my mild criticism of what you did (which amounted to, in my opinion, trying to shut down debate on a site with an open comment policy, and then trying to airbrush it all away until you were called on it). I never blamed you for Hettle’s actions. I blamed you for helping him stick by his story that his actions were necessary given Paul’s horrific conduct in “bullying” emails you woudn’t make public.

What I’m learning here, though, is that you really are willing to cite nothing but the bits and pieces that make up your version of events in order to plead for the support of your fellow travelers. But I’ve linked to all my posts, so I’m just going to let people decide for themselves. Maybe in the safety of their own skulls they can display a bit of intellectual honesty.

And please – that rousing finish to your comment? Laughable. I’m not one of your students, so if you want to silence me, you’re going to have to come up with a better plan than trotting out that predictable mix of righteous indignation and haughty dismissiveness. I’ve debated enough leftist academics to look right past that particular ploy — though I will say that in my limited encounters with you, you seem to use it in just about any situation in which you are challenged. Sad, that.

you kinda gotta go pretty far down the line of “neocons” to find any jews anyway.

what’s the highest ranked jew in the bush administration? Wolfowitz? is he still around?

I hear Neocon, I think “Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rummy”

so maybe, MAYBE I would grant “pro-israel in stance, because it’s politically convienient for them.” Nothing like watching a bunch of goyim claim the suffering of my people as evidence of the monstrosity of “the enemy” and use the ongoing struggle as justification of their attempts to “civilize” the world. like Hitler claiming the Gunpowder Plot as proof that catholics should be exterminated.

also, Jeff? shut the fuck up. as interesting* an aside as your mad-on for Doc Bitch is, it is entirely tangental and derailing crap. if I want to read someone being verbally abusive of the good doctor, I’ll go read HER comment section. either complain about Jill and Lauren here, or jam a sock in your spit faucet.

I love your blog because of the many viewpoints commonly expressed via the comments. I love that you rarely delete them, even the obvious idiots or rabble rousers. I appreciate that you let the first ammendment work the way it’s supposed to on this blog, and thank you for putting up with the annoying, ignorant and downright rude commenters to do so. Thanks also for not stooping to their level and demanding that others share your viewpoint or conform to it in order to belong to this particular community.

what’s the highest ranked jew in the bush administration? Wolfowitz? is he still around?

Oh, Lordy, he’s been at the World Bank for a long time. Most of the neocons in the adminsitration were at high-ranking jobs at State or Defense.

I appreciate that you let the first ammendment work the way it’s supposed to on this blog

Sorry, big pet peeve: the First Amendment only protects against governmental restrictions on speech. Lauren and Jill could censor people to their heart’s content here and it still wouldn’t be a violation of the First Amendment.

I didnt mean to imply that if Lauren or Jill (or Bitch PhD) censored comments it would be a violation of anyone’s first ammendment rights, I meant that it’s nice to see a place where the spirit of the first ammendment is in play, especially when the 1st seems to be under such attack today in the real world and people seem to be confusing (deliberatly or ignorantly) dissent with (gag) treason.

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